As part of my photography course, I have to track my development on a blog. The posts from September 2011 until January 2012 are part of a module called Project Management, for which I was required to work in a group of eight students to create an exhibition. The blog followed every step we took in order to create a successful gallery. The blog posts starting from September 2012 follow my final year on the course. I'll be documenting my research and analysis of my final year projects, as well as include notes of my Professional Practice unit - which prepares us for a range of post graduate options. Finally it also looks at a project called New Creatives, where I'll be working alongside an artists to help college students get more involved with art.

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Friday, March 29, 2013

This week has been a lot better than last week. I've got more motivation, I had a good tutorial with my lecturers and I've got three weeks off for Easter! Anyway, so I've been less stressy and a lot more happy about doing the photo challenge.

The theme of this week is "view". This, like all the other weeks so far, is a very very very broad theme. I didn't particularly want to do a view from my flat, or anything in the building, because I've done that a several times already (week 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12). My initial idea was to go up the spinnaker again. I've wanted to go back to the spinnaker every since I first went there because I want to take a time lapse from up there. But... the weather has been horrible so I didn't think that would be the best idea.

Something that I've had planned for this week was the circus! I received some free tickets for Billy Smart's Circus in Southsea Common from Subway as we let them advertise there, so I thought it would be a great idea to combine this weeks' theme with that.

We had great seats (with our VIP tickets!!) so this was my view. It was pretty tricky to take photos at the circus. The image to the left has a shutter speed of 1/8th of a second, so I'm shocked it's not moved! This photo was actually taken before the whole show started, but I decided to go with this photo because of the colours. It's so bright and colourful and everything you'd expect from a circus.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

It's been quite a while since I photographed the Bootleg Beatles, but we've received the OK to put the photos online! I've added a few photos on my blog, and only 10 on my website, but I uploaded a whole lot more on Facebook!

Although it was really hard to decide on the small selection to put on my blog, these are probably my favourites. The odd thing is that they're all taken in a portrait style, although I did take plenty of landscape shots too.
I really like the close-up of the back of the guitars. It's just a bit of detail that you wouldn't normally look. The top left shot is taken from the second story, and those photos look great! The second on the right is taken from the top level too. It's a very unusual angle and that's why I liked it. I also took a shot similar to that one in a landscape style so you could see the audience but that didn't work as well because of the exposure.

The second photo to the left is a very simple shot. The three men on their guitars. There is nothing distracting about it, whereas the next few shots they changed their costumes into these incredibly colourful outfits.

It was pretty terrifying to walk infront of the whole crowd to take portraits of The Bootleg Beatles, but it was definitely worth it. The portraits look rather professional.

New Creatives has already finished, but I wanted to do a little concluding post about it. Firstly, the photo to the right is taken by a press photographer from The News Portsmouth. It's just a lovely photo of myself and Oliver Merkin and one of the students from Portsmouth College.

Secondly, I never mentioned this on my blog, but at the preview night I received some vouchers from Denise for taking part. I had no idea I would receive anything so I was incredibly surprised and grateful. One of the vouchers was £50 at Blackwells, a bookshop. So far, I've bought two books from the voucher. The first is "Photographing Dogs" by Lara Blair. I've been really interested in dog photography, and as I mentioned previously I will try to do some proper shoots over the summer (of dogs that I don't already know). The second book I bought is "Setting Up A Successful Photography Business" by Lisa Pritchard. It's a book that my lectures have talked about countless of times and we've recently had a lecture on. I haven't actually looked at the book yet (I only got it today!), but from what I've heard about it it's really good. It's got all sorts of important things in there like copyright and model release forms etc.

I do still have some money left on the card so I'll have to do some research on what to buy!

Sunday, March 24, 2013

This week has been rather uninspiring. The weather has been pretty rubbish and I just feel exhausted!! But, it's a weekly photo challenge so I went out anyway. The theme of this week is "Old". It didn't seem too hard to begin with, but it ended up being a bit tricky. I first thought about the broken/burnt down pier in Brighton, although that's a bit of a stereotypical overused image. So I wanted to visit the pier in Portsmouth instead. I walked all the way down to the pier, but like I mentioned before, it was so uninspiring! Any photos I took just looked rubbish. So I continued to walk along the beach front to the war memorial. That didn't really go down well either. Again, I didn't want to take a shot of all the names on the wall as it's very over done. I continued to walk around Portsmouth for about an hour to an hour and a half, which wouldn't have been too bad if it wasn't freezing!!

On the way back I started to think about the type of photography I like and what's been recurring throughout my work. It's both landscapes and abstract photos, which is what brought me to my final idea. I decided to take photos of some wear and tear in my building. It's an incredibly old building so it fits the theme in that sense, but the wear and tear (cracks and broken bits etc) emphasize the ageing of the building.
I didn't think they worked individually to get the point across, so I created a set of three images. I made sure the lines were straight in each of the photos and instead of taking three very similar ones, I wanted to look at three different places. Two horizontal shots and one vertical, to break up the sequence. The first two are more obvious than the last one. The last one has incredible cracked detail on the green tiles, and a crack just above on the white wall.

I think it's a bit of a different approach to the theme. Instead of going for something more obvious, I looked at what type of photography I enjoy and from that I was able decide on what to shoot.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

After a bit of a stressy start of the day, thanks to the snow, I managed to pick up all my finals! First we went to the framing shop in Woking where I got my Succession photo framed. As mentioned in a previous post, I wanted to have a white frame, not too thick of overpowering, and a circular mount so it wouldn't be too layered. I wasn't too sure about the circular mount, but it looks amazing! In fact, it doesn't actually look like it has a mount, which is good, because nothing distracts you from the photo itself.

The top right and the middle left photo are both of the succession photo. You can't see the photo itself very well because of all the lights. I'm so so so happy with the white frame, I think if it was a black frame the photo would have looked a lot smaller and enclosed and the frame would be a main focus point. The glass looks beautiful as well. It makes the photo look very expensive (which it is...) and the glossiness of it makes the photo look more 3 dimensional.

The photo to the left is just a close up of the mount and the frame. It looks beautiful. Unfortunately I could only see the photo for a few minutes before it got wrapped up and put in the back of the car.

We then drove to Brighton to pick up my A2 photo for my motion blur project. I should really start to refer to it as 7591 Miles as it sounds so much more professional. Anyway, this also looks fantastic!! I printed it on matt paper so it wouldn't look like one giant mirror and it's mounted on diabond. The mounting is literally gorgeous. I'm so happy with it!! Diabond is basically the same as aluminium mounting, but a lot lighter in weight.

I can't really find the right words to describe it all, because both of these projects are the most professionally presented work I've every created. My Succession photo will be up in the Eldon exhibition in May/June, 7591 Miles will be handed in as my final for this project.

Shoot 5 with Kayleigh. I'm starting to be more and more interested in pet photography, and as always Kayleigh is my model. I decided to shoot in the same location as I did for the last shoot, but use a completely different lens. I used one of my all time favourite lenses: 50mm with an aperture of 1.8. For anyone that doesn't know what aperture is, it basically means if you have a very low number, the lens is open, and a high number (eg. 22) the lens is almost closed. If you have an aperture of 1.8, whatever you focus on will be sharp, but anything surrounding your subject will be blurry, whereas with a high aperture your whole photo will be in focus. I used an aperture of 1.8 in these images, and as you can see Kayleigh's head is in focus but her body and the pillows behind her are blurry. It was quite a hard shoot because of the aperture. In a lot of my photos, her nose was completely in focus, but her eyes were out of focus!! I'll have to use an aperture of 2.8-5.6 to get a similar effect but not as extreme.

I really like how the images look, they are very different from the last shoot. Kayleigh is such a poser! But the only reason she sat so beautifully while looking at the camera is because I had a treat in my hand!

During the summer I'm going to try and have as many dog/cat photoshoots as possible and hopefully earn a bit of money. I've ordered a book called "photographing dogs" which should come next week so that'll give me some useful tips.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

On Twitter, I came across Imagine That, who, similar to BusinessBoom, create articles about people in the creative industry. I immediately sent them an email asking whether they could feature me. They replied incredibly quick, and told me to just write a little bit about myself: "a short bibliography/blurb about yourself. This can be anything from a sentence long to a full paragraph if you wish, it's completely up to you".

I've just sent them a little bit of text and my three motion blur images. I'm very excited to see the article!!

As part of my Professional Practice unit I have to hand in either a physical portfolio or a digital portfolio. I've already got a digital portfolio (my website), but I don't think that's what I want to hand in. It's a very subjective thing to mark, and I have a feeling my lecturers wouldn't be big fans of my website...

Anyway, so for Christmas I got a beautiful A3 Box Portfolio from Silverprint with 10 clear sleeves. It's something that my lecturers have recommended several times to different people, so I know they're a big fan. The reason I wanted an A3 sized box is so that it's big enough to see the quality of the photos, but not too big to carry it around.

Since I only have 10 sleeves, I originally thought I could only have 10 photos. The whole point of a box portfolio is that you can take the photos out of the box and put them next to each other, rather than having them stuck in a book. A lot of my work is made up of series though, so I didn't want to sacrifice just printing one photo out of the series, or printing a series of eight (my ducks) and then only having two photos left! So What I decided to do was use both sides of the sleeves for the same project. For example, the final layout of the photos will be on the front side, and the back side will have one photo to show the detail and the quality of the photograph.

The image to the right shows this in more detail. The last two images aren't part of my portfolio, I'm only printing them because printing 2 more meant it'll save me £20! The front side will have the circular succession print, and the back will have one landscape shot to show the detail (especially because it's a large format shot). The only ones that won't have a back are the Dutch ornaments, the two photos in The Netherlands, the Musician shot and the "Oldwood Field" shot (9 square images). The first three weren't major projects, so I don't think it's as important, but also the musician shots and the shot in The Netherlands will be about A4 size each, which is still big enough to see the detail. The Oldwood Field photo won't have a back because I feel that the images separately aren't as strong. Together they form the piece, but individually, they wouldn't stand out.

The reason I went for this selection is because the majority of them are university projects, which is where I learnt everything. They all have a story behind them if an interviewer asks me. The motion blur images, the succession project and the ducks are my absolute favourite projects. I really enjoyed the shopping centre series too and I'm planning on continuing that. I wanted to include the magazine photographs and the musician photos to show I can also use a studio. The houses shots and the Oldwood Field photos are part of my portfolio because interior photography is another genre of photography I really enjoy. Finally, the Dutch ornaments and the photos in The Netherlands aren't part of my university projects but I think they are equally important.

This weeks theme was B&W. I'm not the biggest fan of taking photos in black and white, unless they're taken on b&w film. My initial idea was to take a photo of the old style of architecture in Portsmouth. However since the weather has been so miserable, the photos didn't look as nice as I expected them to look. When I converted the photos to black and white, I was even more disappointed with how they looked.

I went out again today, to see whether there was anything else I could take a photo of. I started off at the Guildhall, and took photos from the side (in a deadpan manner, making sure all the lines are straight like usual), but again when I converted it to black and white it didn't look right. After that I took some photos of Park building. Park building is one of the university buildings, but the architecture is very similar to that of the Guildhall. They looked quite nice, but as I was taking photos up instead of forward, it didn't fit with my usual style of photography.
Finally, on my way back, I thought it would be a great idea to take photos of the building I live in, but again, that didn't work either. The building is surrounded by a busy road and traffic lights and all sorts of distracting things. As I was about to give up, we walked past some strange detail on the building which I've never paid attention to before, and that's what I ended up taking a photo of. It's taken straight on, so to top and the bottom are completely horizontal and there is no distortion. This is a great addition to my abstract photography. I didn't convert this photo into black and white, which is probably the reason I chose it! The brick itself was already grey, and with the blackened shadows, it looks as though it's been edited!

Friday, March 15, 2013

Thinking of a title
is probably the hardest part of the whole project. I don’t want anything cheesy
or obvious, but I don’t want something that sounds silly or too abstract. When
seeing the title, I want people to start to understand the work, but not
completely give it away.

I’ve been thinking
about a title for a long time, but it wasn’t until the group tutorial recently
that we got the ball rolling. Some things that were suggested were “moving on”
or “immigration” or simply “movement”. It seemed to simple and rather obvious.
I don’t want the title to ruin the whole piece!

Then Dan (a course
mate) thought of the idea of adding up all the miles I’ve travelled together and
have that be the title. I thought it was a fantastic idea!! It shows the
distance I’ve travelled, without using obvious words.

I started to think
about whether to include every single move, or just the out of country moves.

Moves:

1.Within
The Netherlands

2.From
Netherlands to America

3.From
America to Netherlands

4.From
Netherlands to UK

5.Within
the UK

6.Within
the UK

I don’t think the
moves within the same country are as important as that happens a lot more. The
3 photos also indicate the three countries where I have lived, thus it would be
more appropriate to only add the distances of the moves abroad, to The
Netherlands to America, America to The Netherlands and The Netherlands to
England.

I used the following
website to find out the distance as google maps wouldn’t work as it was an overseas
action.

As explained re telephone conversation. The original print supplied was made as
a result of scanning the negative and outputting the image via a digital machine
onto photographic paper.
As we were instructed to produce a hand print we were unable to match the
supplied print as the colours and contrast on this type of digital print are
greatly enhanced by the machine used.

I will return a test strip with your negative and sample print to show you the
problems we encountered.

Bryan O'Leary

Unfortunately I couldn't get my image handprinted at the Artful Dodgers as somehow the negative was scanned wrong and the colours were changed. These are two photos to show the difference between the negative
and the scan. I am not sure how this massive difference happened, as I scanned them
in properly (choosing the right film, not editing etc). The difference between the
images is that the scan has come out very red – something I love about the photo
– whereas the hand print has more realistic colours to it – a browny grey.

After having seen the hand print, I have decided to stick
with how I scanned in the photo. Although the colours in the hand print are more
realistic to what I took a photo of, the redness of the photo is partially why I
love it. I think it also better to stick with the scan as it fits in the with the
sequence of the three photos and finally I feel it better portrays my concept. It’s
about confusion and beauty. The colours from the hand print make it very obvious
as to what you’re looking at. The redness makes it more abstract and confusing, but also more
beautiful and special.

This is why I have decided to stick with the scanned image rather
than the hand print.I do not want to sacrifice the outcome of my photo if
the only reason is for it to be hand printed.

I went to The Vault
in Brighton today to get my scanned images printed.
As explained earlier, I wanted to stick to my scanned image rather than getting
it hand printed. I decided to get it printed A2, mainly as that’s all I can afford
at the moment. It will come to £32, although the mounting will be another £45. I’m
very excited to see the outcome of it. I was shown a different photo mounted on
Diabond and it looks fantastic and incredibly professional.

I am only getting
the red motion blur image printed A2 and mounted, and the other two photos in the
series will be A3. Luckily I only need to have one image professionally presented
and mounted, and the other two can be a smaller size (although still professionally
done but not mounted).

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Because
I’m going to be presenting my Succession project for the Eldon show, I need to get
that professionally presented. I had mounted it on thin mount board as that is all
I could afford, but with the help of my parents (and because they want to hang it
up in their house) we decided to get it professionally framed. We went to a framing
shop in Woking to see what they could offer. Basically what’s going to happen is
it’s going to get a white frame, as I didn’t want it to take away from the photo
itself, and it’s going to have a circular window mount, so it doesn’t look too layered
(first the white border of the photo, then the window mount and then the frame).
Finally, it’ll have a glass front. It’ll be done in a week or so, but unfortunately
I won’t be going home anytime soon so won’t see it for a while!!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

After the shoot from the previous post, I decided I wanted to do one more photoshoot of Kayleigh before I went back to Portsmouth. As mentioned in the previous post, I really wanted to take some photos outside, so I did the next best thing - in the conservatory. The colours in there are quite neutral (other than the new carpet) but it looked great with Kayleighs ginger fur. The top right photo shows a selection of my favourite images, and the middle right and left are my two favourites out of everything. Finally the bottom right is a cheeky unedited photo of Kayleigh.

The colour combination works really well: there isn't an overpowering red sofa behind her and the background isn't too plain. The subtle orange in the pillows ad the brown of the chair match with Kayleigh. I slightly edited the photos so that Kayleigh is a bit brighter and more colourful than the chair behind her.

I decided to choose these two images as my favourites because she's looking at the camera. Although there were a few photos where she was looking away that I liked as well, I prefer the eye contact.
I'd like to do more dog photoshoots with different dogs, but that'll be a project for the summer.

Monday, March 11, 2013

When I get to Australia I will be assisting a very popular pet photographer, Caitlin McColl. To get myself ready for that, I've been doing some practice shoot with Kayleigh. I didn't realise how many things you have to think about when taking photos of dogs!! It's not only about trying to get eye contact with her, but it's also (obviously) about composition. The top photo is a great photo of Kayleigh, although it isn't taken in a very nice location (poles sticking out her head). The second photo is a lot better, although she is a bit close to the table. It's a colourful shot and shows her within a clear context. I'd love to take some photos of her outside, but it's a horrible day so that wouldn't look very nice.

It also takes a lot of patience... and a LOT of shooting. I do like the photos that I've taken, but will definitely need to take more.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

What impact can virality have on organisations using social networking sites?

8,111 words
50 pages
85 references

I have officially finished my dissertation. It's due on Tuesday the 12th of March so I'm a little bit early. Now that this is done and New Creatives has finished I feel like I can finally just take a break and relax.... even though I still have about 100 things to do!

When I found out the theme for this week I was incredibly excited - it's Painted. My project for this semester is all about photograph looking like paintings, so I decided to do another motion blur photoshoot to get that effect. The photo to the right is my favourite from the shoot. It's quite different from the photographs I've taken for my project as the main focus were the straight lines, whereas this photo has "loops". I felt this looked more like brush strokes and thus made it look more painterly.

For this shoot I didn't use a tripod. I remember from my first few motion blur shoots I didn't use a tripod and the images weren't as geometrically created. The image to the right looks a bit more "free" meaning the lines aren't completely vertical.

I love the abstraction of the photograph, without knowing what it is, it would literally be unidentifiable. My large format images do show a bit of forest detail, however in this photo everything is incredibly blurred. The photo is taken in a portrait style to steer away from the traditional landscape photography. Because it's still winter and it was a cloudy day, the colours don't indicate it's a woodland either.

Yesterday was the New Creatives preview night at Aspex Gallery and it was absolutely fantastic! It was great to have a chat with the other buddies about their experience but also to see all the work up on the wall. It's a proud moment!! Portsmouth college were in the cafe space and Havant college were in the main exhibition room. There were maps that indicated which work belongs to who and which college, which was very well organised.

My video was up on the wall in the cafe area, although a bit biased, it was definitely the best place in the gallery! The video was looped so it played over and over again. It starts off with some images taken at each of the colleges showing the progression of the work, and then it goes into a time lapse video of the curation. There are two different scenes, the image to the right is the second scene. After the time lapse there is a quote by Oliver Merkin talking about his experience of New Creatives, followed my a quote by myself. Alongside my work, I also had a little tag that explained I was a buddy.

The picture to the left was taken by Lauren Whatling, who offered to photograph the event. It shows some of the work created by Portsmouth College. It's very professionally presented and it looks great. I've said this so many times, but to see how the students' work has progressed over such a short period of time is amazing. I remember going to Portsmouth College for the first time and no body really knew how to interpret the theme.

The work to the right is some of the things created by Havent College. Again, seeing how these small ideas built up into something that looks so professional is great. The doodle piece is definitely my favourite. It must have taken so much time and patience to create it as it's all hand drawn.

All in all, I'm very happy to have been part of New Creatives. It has taught me some of the things I can do when I have finished the course, such as working in a gallery, being a curator or being a teacher. It was also shown me what a professional artist does. This experience has been a professional practice and has been a lot more valuable than a lecture on that topic. Thanks to New Creatives I've also gained more confidence in myself, both to talk about my work but also to help others with theirs.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Today I went to Aspex Gallery to help curate the show. When I got there, some students from Portsmouth college were busy creating a layout plan. I set up my camera to take a time lapse video of the work being hung up on the wall. The space Portsmouth college has is the cafe area. There are two walls so I shot two different time lapse scenes.

Havant college is set in the main exhibition space. Even though there were only 3 students, they have all produced more than one piece of work. Their section looks fantastic! Their development has been incredible from when I last saw it.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

I've been working on all sorts of ways to get noticed. I've got a twitter, youtube, vimeo, pinterest, facebook, flickr and tumblr account, but each of them have got different addresses. It's quite easy for a few of the websites such as twitter (https://twitter.com/ElaineDeVries) and pinterest (http://pinterest.com/elaine721/), but the username for my pagebook page consisted of all sorts of numbers and dashes etc. I managed to change it so something a lot easier. My new Facebook address is:http://www.facebook.com/elainephotography

Sunday, March 3, 2013

I start every post this way, but the topics just keep getting harder! This weeks theme was "hot", which is pretty hard when everything around me is cold! For the longest time I had no idea what to do, so I just started to take some pictures of the food we were cooking. It didn't really work out like I'd hoped, so I was about to put my camera away when I turned around and looked back at the kitchen and actually quite liked what I saw. The lighting looked great, especially with the pink-ish glow from the extractor fan and the oven. You can see the steam coming from the two pots on the hob, which indicates it's hot. Instead of taking a photo of fire, or boiling water etc, I wanted to step back and look outside the box.

I've always quite liked architectural photography, so this fits in with that genre of photography. Something I'm always very aware of in all my photographs are the lines. I try and shoot everything from a very straight angle and use symmetry This is a recurring theme in the majority of the photos I've taken for the photo challenge: Technology, Weather, Stone and Tall.

Last night Lauren asked me if I could come on a shoot with her at the Guildhall to photograph the Bootleg Beatles. Last semester she conducted a project about tribute bands, and has continued it this semester as a side project. I'd never been in the Guildhall before, and since I've done a bit of band photography before Uni, I thought it would be a great opportunity.

When we entered the Guildhall, we got a special press pass which allowed us to basically do whatever we wanted. Before the show started we briefly met the members of The Bootleg Beatles, and had a chat about what to photograph and where to go etc. They were incredibly friendly, and seemed to be very relaxed. We took a few photos back stage, but the show was about to start and they were getting changed into their costumes, so we didn't have too much time.

The show was absolutely amazing! We started off just walking around the audience trying to find the best place to photograph. It was a bit awkward to walk around while everyone else was sitting down, especially when we wanted to get some close-up shots right at the front. But as the show went on the more comfortable we got. There was a second level, although it wasn't in use, so we asked security whether it would be possible to go up there, and we could!

We got some amazing shots, and after the show was finished we asked The Bootleg Beatles if they could sign our press stickers. I've just gone through all the photos and picked out 39 that are the best. I've set the contact sheet to Lauren, who is going to send both her and my contact sheets to The Bootleg Beatles. Once they've OK'd it, I'll be posting the photos on my blog and website.

The reason I decided to put these scenes together is
because of the matching colours throughout the whole video. The video starts
off with quite a light scene, with a pastel blue, light brown, a bit of green,
and a pastel yellow. There is a dark line straight through the middle of the
photos. To me, this scene almost looks like fire. It is one of the most abstract
scenes in the video. The reason I decided to start off with this scene is
firstly because it’s from my first motion blur time lapse, so it’s keeping it
in order, but also because it’s completely unrecognisable. I want people to
guess what they’re looking at rather than knowing it straight away.

The second scene is quite a bit darker, but still very
obscure. The colours match with the darker colours from the initial scene. The
lines are completely straight, which relates back to the tree trunk in the middle
of the photo of the first scene. At some points you can see a bit more detail
towards the tops of the trees, but it’s so quick that doesn’t defeat the
abstraction.

The third scene is probably the most obvious scene. I’m
standing a bit further away from the trees, so the landscape is more apparent.
The tree on the left of the scene closest to the camera has the most detail.
The reason I added this scene is so it starts to indicate what you’re looking
at. Each photo is taken in such a similar way, that it almost looks as though
I’m taking a photo of a blurred scene, instead of blurring the scene myself.
What interests me about this scene is the fact that you can see the tops of the
trees moving in the wind – something that you would normally take a time lapse
of.

The colours in the fourth scene are similar to the ones
in the first scene. It’s got a very pastely green in it, and a bit of light
blue towards the top. In this scene there wasn’t any natural movement so I
stood close by a road. It was getting a bit darker at the time so cars started
to use their lights. This created interesting shapes within the time lapse and
would make the viewer think about what they’re looking at. Again, in every
scene so far, the trees have been completely vertical.

The fifth scene is a very interesting scene. This was
taken on a different day than all the previous scenes so far. It was a very
sunny day with cloudy intervals. This meant I could emphasize the natural
changes in the landscape within my time lapse. This scene shows the sun moving
through the clouds creating shadows, but also intricate shapes on the trees.
The colours are a lot more bold when it’s sunny, but in the shade they are
similar to the colours in the third scene. The blue at the top of the photos relate
back to the first and fourth scene. This scene is a sort of transition between
the start of the time lapse and the end of the time lapse. The first half is
all taken on cloudy days, whereas the second half is taken on sunny days.
Because this scene includes sun and shade, it was the perfect way to
transition.

The sixth scene reminds me a lot of the first scene. The
colours are very similar and composition of it is quite similar. The green bushes
towards the bottom of the shot keep getting hit with sunlight and then darkening
again when the sun disappears. It’s not as obvious as the previous shot, but creates
subtle changes.

The final scene is looking up. One of my original digital
photos was looking at the tops of the trees and it was one of my most popular photos,
therefore I decided to create a time lapse of that image. The colours are similar
to the previous scene, the first scene and the fourth scene. It’s very light, but
still has some darkness to it. I like the fact that in some of the photos the tops
of the trees are very obvious, whereas other photos are completely blurred. This
creates confusion.

I decided
to add Hans Zimmer’s “Time” song to it as it relates to my concept. The photos are
about movement and the juxtaposition between beauty and confusion. But the music
adds the sense of time to it. The images reflect on a journey, it’s me looking back
at my experience of having lived in all these countries.

Friday, March 1, 2013

As picky as I am, I decided to go back and work on my time lapse again. I thought I was finished with it, but there was something bothering me. The final time lapse sequence of the sky wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, and as I was flipping through my workbook, I noticed I'd taken another motion blur time lapse of the sky which was MUCH better, but I didn't have enough images. Now that I know a bit more about motion blur time lapses and how to edit them, I thought I would give it a go. It's currently in the process of being created, so I don't have a link yet, but when I do let you know! The right image is how the time lapse originally was, and the left photo is what I've changed it to. It's not as abstract, but it looks a lot better, and the faint colour matches the rest of the scenes.

This is the poster for New Creatives. The preview event is on Friday the 8th of March from 6-8pm, and the exhibition will be on from the 9th of March until the 14th of April. Come and check it out!! I'll have a time lapse video of my experience in Aspex Gallery too!

I liked my website, but there was something not quite right.
I loved the main page, and like I mentioned on the previous website design post, a lot of photographers
have this kind of layout when you first come onto their website. I decided to change
it slightly (right photo is old layout, left photo is new layout)

I think it looks a bit more organised as it’s all centred.
The layout from the previous layout was a bit scattered. My name was slightly indented,
but the “work” and “blog” text wasn’t. It looked a bit out of place. This layout
isn’t like that. My name is just about the same length as the photo, and the three
links are centred perfectly. I decided to add a “contact” button to the front page
because it’s important that people can easily contact me if they need me.

Last month I created a video of all the things my boyfriend and I have been up to in January. This started out because of the idea we're moving to Australia in September and want to do as many things as we can while we're in England. Although we haven't done as much as last month, I created another short video about February!http://youtu.be/q6BtKr06yTs
I really like creating these videos as it's a great way to remember this year. It'll be a pretty crazy one: England, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Dubai, Singapore, Australia..... By the end of this year we'll have an amazing video filled with memories.

Since my dissertation is all about virality, I was very interested in seeing how the Harlem Shake video went viral. I first heard of the Harlem Shake at Subway, but had no idea what it is, but soon it was literally EVERYWHERE. It even started playing on Subway FM! Anyway, videos popped up out of no where and all of a sudden I stumbled upon a video taken at the Portsmouth University Library! A few days later I found a Facebook Event for the Harlem Shake to be performed at the Guildhall in Portsmouth so I went out to see it. It was great to see how many people had turned up, although there wasn't very clear direction, it was a great to see all the different costumes.
Here is the video I create:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvDabzcYl8o
And here is the official video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FxE0uzkvlA

On the 8th of February I assisted one of my classmates with her Large Format photoshoot. She had never used the 5x4 camera before, and since I love it so much and can't afford to buy more film, is was a great opportunity for the both of us to work together. We went to her grandparents' house in Southsea as her project revolves around their lives. I took a time lapse of shoot:

It clearly shows how much time it takes in order to take one photo! There was so much preparation involved: getting the camera set up, getting it in focus, light meter reading, waiting for a cloud to pass by, take another light meter reading, record what the readings are, take a photo of what you're taking a photo of, and then of course the process of taking the actual photo.

Today I went up to London to go to the Artful Dodgers. It was at Chancery Lane and definitely not what I was expecting... I had to get buzzed into the building and walk down to the basement, getting a bit lost in the basement! Anyway, you enter Artful Dodgers and it's just one room filled with prints everywhere! It was great to see the other people's work and the scale of everything! I will be getting the photo to the left printed A2 sized (20x24 inches) on matt paper. They will post it to me in a huge tube on Monday the 11th and include all the test prints. I've very excited to see how it's going to turn out!!

The reason I went to Artful Dodgers is because they specialise in hand printed images from the dark room. According to my lecturers they will look a lot better and will have a lot more depth and detail to them. Having them hand printed will also mean that I'm not making use of any digital technology, they are taken in an analogue style and will also be printed that way.

When I get my photo back from the Artful Dodgers, I will go back to The Vault in Brighton to get it mounted on Diabond (similar to aluminium). When I got my negatives developed there, I had a chat with one of the guys there about mounting options and he showed me what diabond is and how it would look. I thought it looked fantastic, so I'll be getting that done for my final. Hopefully I can get it all done in time for the "Crit" - our little Eldon exhibition for everyone on the course - but with my shifts at Subway, New Creatives commitments, my dissertation hand in and all my lectures, that might be a bit unrealistic. Luckily our final deadline is after the Easter holiday.

On Wednesday 6th I'll be helping up at Aspex gallery to set up the show and hang up the work. I'll be creating a time lapse video of this which I will exhibit in Aspex gallery.